Chapter 71: The Impoverished Viscount Household’s Second Son’s Opening Ceremony 3
*
First, I decided to take care of the part that seemed like it would cost the most money.
Namely, the sword.
I opened the door to the Torr Rosso Armory, which looked as dilapidated as ever, giving off no sense that they were actually open for business.
The deserted interior, where not even motes of dust danced in the air, really didn’t seem like a shop doing any sort of business.
And, as usual, the shop was empty.
Surely she hadn’t collapsed behind the counter again? I peeked, but the shopkeeper, Tepe, was nowhere to be seen.
It should be natural that she hadn’t collapsed, but with that shopkeeper, it wouldn’t have been strange if she had, which is scary.
To be honest, I was even a little disappointed that she hadn’t collapsed.
“I don’t think you should look disappointed that someone hasn’t collapsed,” Erica said, adding, “Though I can somewhat understand,” as she pointed to the bell placed on the counter.
“It says, ‘Please ring if you require assistance,’ My Lord.”
Looking at the bell Erica pointed to, I felt a slight hesitation.
Because I had a vision of the shopkeeper Tepe bursting out from the back the moment I pressed the bell, letting out a strange cry, hair flying wildly, screaming, “A customerrrrr!”
Thinking that woman might actually do it wasn’t necessarily a disrespectful assumption, I believe.
No, no, that’s definitely disrespectful, what am I thinking? I reconsidered and rang the bell.
The clear sound of the bell permeated the empty shop.
Honestly, because of my weird imaginings, I can’t deny I tried to relax excessively.
That said, it wasn’t like I let my guard down. My opponent was Tepe.
She’s an eccentric who runs this strange armory with absolutely no goods displayed inside, the type to fall asleep on the floor behind the counter because no customers come.
I had braced myself for her to emerge from the back, hair flying, letting out strange cries, perhaps even half-naked.
But this? This was unexpected.
“A customerrrrr!”
“Whoaaaaah!”
Seeing the shopkeeper Tepe suddenly sprout from the shop floor, throwing a floorboard up violently, I let out a scream.
*
Erica scolded me for screaming, brief though it was.
Incidentally, Tepe was being lectured right alongside me.
A shopkeeper is synonymous with the lord of a domain. While it’s natural for the lord of the castle to act freely within their domain, surely there are proper manners to observe, like not appearing from under the floor to greet a customer, she said.
It was a perfectly reasonable lecture, though the question of why I was being lectured alongside her did arise.
Well, the moment Tepe sprouted from the floor, Erica—though she didn’t scream—had grabbed the hem of my clothes, which was cute, so there was no problem.
Freed from Erica’s brief but rather intense lecture, Tepe and I began our business discussion, sharing a silent moment of empathy like, “We got scolded together again, huh?”
“What did you do?”
That was her first question upon seeing my sword.
Her tone was serious, unlike someone who had just been dozing in the underfloor storage moments ago.
Incidentally, I wanted to ask the same thing.
It was already like this when I returned from the Demon Realm Forest and tried to maintain the sword.
Meaning, just as Tepe was seeing now, a pattern resembling cracks, blood vessels, or leaf veins had emerged across the entire sword.
Originally, this sword was made from a special material called Magic Iron, allowing Physical Enhancement to flow through it, and when using Physical Enhancement, a wood-grain-like pattern would appear.
But when doing nothing, it looked like just an ordinary sword.
For it to be in a state like this, with vein-like patterns emerging all over the sword, couldn’t be normal.
Worst case, I’d have to buy a new sword.
Wondering if it could somehow be fixed by reforging or something, I answered Tepe’s question.
“I didn’t do anything special, though.”
“People who did do something special usually say that.”
Even if she says that… I just used Physical Enhancement with the sword normally.
When I told Tepe just that, she ruffled her perpetually messy black hair vigorously with her hand, gave me a suspicious look, then held a tube-like object to her eye and began examining the sword intently, as if licking it with her gaze.
“Hmm, part of the Magic Iron has transformed. It doesn’t look like it’s become brittle or anything… Ah, but wait a minute, I’ve seen this somewhere before.”
Muttering, “Where was it?” Tepe tapped the sword kink-kink with something like a small hammer.
Ahh, this… the inside is probably fine too.
Watching Tepe conduct her inspection while thinking it sounded like a soliloquy—no, it probably was a soliloquy—she suddenly froze.
“This.”
“This?”
I couldn’t help but repeat her soliloquy-like mutter.
“Isn’t this the stuff I saw in the Library City!”
Tepe thrashed her messy black hair around, clutching her head and writhing in agony.
I thought I was used to Tepe’s eccentricities, but honestly, this was a bit scary.
“Why are you so calm!”
For some reason, I was being yelled at.
“Well, even if you say ‘the stuff I saw,’ I don’t know what you mean, and I don’t know about this Library City either.”
As I shrugged and replied, Tepe let out a groan like “Ughhh,” and Erica gently informed me from behind, “The Library City is a city in the Soldas Kingdom to the south, My Lord.”
That jogged my memory.
The Library City in the Soldas Kingdom, in the southern part of the continent… a city that’s one giant Library, where many people seeking to master scholarship and magic live, was it?
“This!”
Tepe pointed at my sword.
“This is the metal made in the experimental furnace of the Library City’s Magicka Reflection Furnace! It’s the kind of stuff that doesn’t even have a name yet, let alone any prospect of mass production or even stable creation!”
“Huh.”
“Not ‘Huh’!?”
Tepe clutched her head, yelling, “Why don’t you understand the gravity of the situation!?” but I swallowed the words, “It’s definitely because your explanation sucks.”
Because her eyes were bloodshot and scary.
“Master Longdagger.”
Tepe said, her eyes completely fixed.
“Tell me everything that happened, down to the last detail. Or else…”
Or else? I prompted her to continue with just my gaze.
“I’ll slice open my own belly with your sword to test its sharpness!”
What kind of threat is that? I sighed.